Part 1 The origins of the post-1945 world: the Soviet Union and the coming war; east-west relations; the German problem; the German sweep; the Americans; the Far East; the European war and the question of a second front; the war in Asia and the Pacific; Yalta; Potsdam; the balance of power. Part 2 The United States as a global power: the Soviet Union an eastern Europe; Tito; Soviet expansionism and the west; the United States and the Eastern Bloc; the Marshall plan; America and the enemy states - Japan, Germany; NATO and American leadership. Part 3 The Third World - colonialism, neo-colonialism, and revolution: The West and the Third World; the Second World War and anti-colonialism; the Soviet Union and the Third World; colonialism if possible; independence if necessary; India; the spectre of revolution - China - the Chinese communists, civil war, the impact of Japan and the Second World War to 1949; the Arab-Israeli crisis. Part 4 Asia in crisis: the Far East and Korea - the origins of the war, the course of the war; Vietnam - the French, Vietnamese nationalism, the return of the French, Dien Bien Phu and the Americans, the Geneva conference; SEATO - the People's Republic of China - reconstruction, the transition to socialism, the first five year plan, the hundred flowers, the great leap forward, the restoration of the bureaucrats, the Sino-Soviet split. Part 5 The alliances: the satellites after 1945; the end of the Stalin era; the succession; the spectre of revolution; de-Stalinization - Poland, Hungary, Albania; the Atlantic alliance; European integration and the German rearmament; competition in the Third World - Iran, the plot to restore the Shah; the Russians and the Third World War - Suez. Part 6 Decolonization in Africa: the Maghrib - the war in Algeria, De Gaulle and the fifth republic, independent Algeria; south of the Sahara - British west Africa, the French colonies; the other empires - the Congo, the future. Part 7 A neo-colonial world - Latin America: the neo-colonial era; Argentina and Juan Peron; the United States and hemispheric security; counter-revolution - Guatemala; revolution - Cuba - the revolution in action, to the Bay of Pigs, the missile crisis, the aftermath. Part 8 The wars in Indo-China: Diem; Laos; Managing the crisis; the Buddhists; the assassination; the Americanization of the war; Tonkin; escalation; Tet; Nixon; the war in Cambodia; protest; peace for America; recriminations. Part 9 Asia's great powers: the cultural revolution -the Shanghai People's Commune - the fall of Lin, the return of Deng, the post-Mao era. (Part contents).